estimates for both works immediately. The extension to be 100 feet long, forty-one or forty-two feet wide, three stories high, with a hall dividing each floor into two long wards. Estimate what the cost will be if you build it youself. The bake-house should be large enough to bake for 5,000 men, one large room with a floor, a shingle roof and closed in with upright boarding, battened. If a hospital is indispensable at the camp, even with the extension of the city hospital, you must build it but let it cost as little as possible. Have the windows of a single sash to raise up or let down. I expect to be in Indianapolis in three or four days and if the matter can be delayed till that time I would prefer it.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Lieutenant Colonel Eighth Infantry, Commissary-general of Prisoners.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, March 19, 1862.

Honorable J. M. HOWARD, Senate.

SIR: I am directed by the Secretary of War to acknolwedge the receipt of your letter of the 11th instant inclosing papers in relation to the exchange of two companies of mounted rifles now at Fort Wayne, Mich. In reply I have the honor to inform you that no effort will be spared by this Department to effect a speedy exchange of the troops referred to.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

P. H. WATSON,

Assistant Secretary of War.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, March 19, 1862.

His Excellency ALEXANDER RAMSEY, Saint Paul, Minn.

SIR: I am directed by the Secretary of War to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 19th ultimo relative to the exchange of Drs. J. H. Stewart and C. W. Le Boutillier, surgeon and assistant surgeon of the First Minnesota Regiment, who were taken prisoners at Bull Run and released on their parole. In reply I have the honor to inform you that your letter was referred to the Adjutant-General, who has returned it to this Department with the following indorsement:

Surgeons Stewart and Le Boutillier are not on the list of exchanges reported to this office up to this date.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

P. H. WATSON,

Assistant Secretary of War.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPT. OF THE MISSISSIPPI, Numbers 7.
Saint Louis, March 19, 1862.

I. So much of the recent Department of the Ohio as is included in the present Department of the Mississippi will be designated the District of the Ohio and will continue to be commanded by Major General D. C. Buell. The depots of prisoners of war at Columbus and Indianapolis and such others as may hereafter be established will be excepted from this arrangement, and the commanding officers of these depots